Wastewater treatment systems vary in size and scope. They can be sized for treatment of large amounts of wastewater from a municipality or other large cumulative systems for benefitting many residences, businesses, and industrial facilities serviced by the municipality. The wastewater treatment system can also be designed and sized for single home residential use and small scale residential and commercial uses.
In the small-scale applications, a wastewater treatment system will often include a septic or treatment tank that can receive wastewater, allow for solids from the wastewater to settle out and remove Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD), Total Suspended Solids (TSS), nitrogen, phosphorus, bacteria and pathogens, among other constituents. The wastewater treatment system will also often include an infiltration system downstream of the septic tank for receiving the wastewater from the septic tank, treating the wastewater, and for discharging the wastewater back to the environment for further treatment and groundwater recharge. The field can be comprised from pipes lying atop a bed of stone, concrete and plastic galleries, and a number of proprietary technologies.